


Skyfaller

by Iskelan (Zeratul)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Children, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, force!Thrawn, kid!Thrawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 05:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18771916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeratul/pseuds/Iskelan
Summary: A story of one flight, from which noone was supposed to come back.





	Skyfaller

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Skyfaller](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563493) by [Zeratul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeratul/pseuds/Zeratul). 



> I couldn't stop thinking of it when I found out that there was a tiny hint in the Alliances that Thrawn used to be one of those force-sensitive kids. If someone dislikes the very idea of force!Thrawn - just move along.
> 
> Music mood: Celtic Woman - Walking in the air

 

The small metal sphere was soaring meters above the floor, held by ceaseless invisible threads of energy coming from his fingertips. This energy was everywhere, spreading like an infinite canvas without a single empty spot. It was darkness and light at the same time, unseen by eyes, but felt by a small number of chosen ones.

 

Skywalkers - a beautiful and cruel name for a curse that they had since birth, depriving them of even the short childhood given to a Chiss.

 

Raw moved the sphere and felt a warning vibration: another sphere was moving ahead. A moment before collision he made his sphere dive lower and then return to the previous trajectory after the other one flew above his. The vibrations intensified - two more were approaching to intercept his from different angles. Down, up, down again. Evade. Speed up. Back to the course. His sphere lowered into his palm.

 

“So good, as always,” Ori mentioned. She and the other two girls that lived together with him in this room, barely going out, loved this game. It was much like what they were doing when they entered the trance before the console on the bridge, but much more simple. And safe. There was no other entertainment for children, living in a small common room aboard a patrol cruiser. And even this game was more like training.

 

“I want to grow up so much… to do anything more interesting than this,” Raw opened his eyes and looked at his sphere. Normal Chiss would only see a shiny metal ball and nothing more. No vibrating threads, piercing through time and space. No bonds, long or short, between all the objects of reality he was able to perceive, filling every little thing with some additional senses.

 

“And I’m scared of it. I don’t want to lose it,” Nai quietly objected and launched her sphere in a new flight. “I think it has so much undiscovered potential than the things we are made to do here. We could become something so much more…”   
  
“Oh, seriously?” Raw closed his eyes again and launched his sphere in response, attacking her from different directions. Nai’s sphere was evading successfully. “Do you like to be an instrument without any right for a free will?”   


“I love to feel you all, like you’re a part of me. And we all are a part of something so grand that only we can feel and comprehend. The only annoying thing is your neverending anger. It’s distracting.”  
  
“Consider it as an additional obstacle,” Raw replied and hit his sphere on hers. Nai couldn’t evade this time, shrieking and, losing all her concentration, let her sphere fall. Raw managed to catch it a centimeter from the floor and returned to her. “If you have to set course during a battle, there’s going to be a lot of distracting emotions around.”   


“Boys are so annoying,” Is exclaimed in irritation. She was the youngest of the navigators on Ik’cha cruiser. She arrived few weeks ago instead of Shrea, who disappeared without explanation after a tough flight through Miklar nebula. She was less than three years old, but her potential was so strong that the CEDF decided not to let her waste more time on obtaining basic education. So now the other children here were teaching her that tiny bits they knew themselves of the outer world. “They think only of those battles!”  


“You speak like you’ve seen so many other boys,” Raw chuckled. Now he was the oldest of them. He was turning seven, and his body already started to change. He grew up quickly and he was still growing, that made it impossible for him to maintain in uniform, designed for kids. So the ship’s commander found a tunic that did almost fit him. Hence it was easier for him to imagine that he was just another crewmember that was set to observe other navigators for some reason. The girls that lived here with him didn’t care at all, what they were wearing, and they never wished to try on something different from their white uniform, looking like funeral dresses.  


“Commander Mitth’ali’taral is also a boy,” Is pursed her lips.

 

“He’s nothing like me,” Raw objected sharply and jerked his shoulders. The ship’s commander indeed couldn’t be called a soft person. He treated the skywalkers exclusively as an important tool for the Ascendancy fleet and never allowed himself to get attached to them as one would normal kids. It was cruel, but it was only logical. Although it seemed to Raw, that he - the only boy that was born skywalker through last years - became an exception for him. The commander allowed him to go out, shared his small library with him and even invited him on crew’s physical training sessions while the ship flew through relatively safe and peaceful hyperspace. “He’s normal.”  


“We must be proud of ourselves, Raw,” Ori said in reproach. She was only half a year younger than him, but he liked to point out that she also was more coldminded and analytic. Raw never tried to contradict, but he knew for sure that she was only trying to hide her neverending deep dark fear that boiled inside her every single time it was her turn to lead the ship. “We serve the Ascendancy, and there is no one else to do the things we do here.”

 

“An experienced pilot with a good navigation computer doesn’t need any special insight.”  
  
“Why do you say such things?”

 

“I just… don’t want to be here. I’d prefer to live these days with my family on solid ground.” Raw stared at the grey wall, recalling in his memory of those who he didn’t see for almost four years already - his mother and the elder brother. They were relatively distinct - mother was uncheerful and gloomy, brother was loving and caring, but always very busy. Two elder twin sisters were only blurry spots - they were taken away before he started talking. The images of the world where he spent first years of his life were slipping away, mixing into a white-blue abstract canvas under black sky, cut with colorful bands of sun-wind. “And now I can barely remember how it looks like.”  


“Stop whimpering, Raw. You’ll grow up soon and may go back to them,” she pinched his cheek and laughed. His cheekbones that grew almost as big as mature’s ones on his yet childish face seemed to be the funniest thing she’d seen in her whole short life, so he got used to be patient on her.

 

The door into the room opened, and a lieutenant sent by commander appeared on the threshold.

 

“The ship is entering the rhi’takhor zone,” he pronounced in commanding tone. “Navigator Ori, it’s your turn.”

  
Raw shivered, feeling intense vibrations in flows of the energy that surrounded them. He looked at Ori - she was faltering and sat still, clenching her fists behind her back, and her face became a few shades more pale. Two teardrops sparkled like fire in her painfully bright eyes. Raw’s hands started sweating in the waves of fear that came from her.   


“Have you become deaf?” unlike commander Mitth’ali’taral, his junior officer lost their temper very quickly when they had to deal with skywalkers. It was most likely that they also felt these vibrations, though they couldn’t comprehend them. Like the deaf can’t hear the sound of powerful sound waves, but they feel how every cell inside them is shaking in this rhythm.

  
“Sir, allow me to come instead. The rhi’takhor zone is an unpredictable place, and she’s not feeling well. And I… I’m so bored here anyway,” Raw tried to intervene, feeling absolutely confident that right now she can’t be let go to the navigation session.

 

“Commander ordered me to bring Ori. If you’re bored - go read some of your books,” lieutenant approached them and rudely grabbed the girl’s hand. “Come on!”  


Ori that was always ready to execute her duties suddenly broke down and started to scream. The officer didn’t expect such turn and couldn’t hold her tight enough, when she freed her hand from his fist and reached to the further wall of the room. However here, in the room with only four benches and a shower, there was no place to run, and her behavior was only an act of desperation, an attempt to avoid something that was to happen.

  
“What’s going on with her?” lieutenant groaned. The screaming attracted more officers to the room and they managed to immobilize Ori and take her outside. But even then she didn’t stop screaming and trying to break free, and for few more minutes her voice could be heard by other children even throught the locked door.   
  
“What’s happening?” Nai asked in scared whisper, ruining the heavy silence. “The rhi’takhor zone is not so difficult, why…”   
  
“It’s blocking the long range sensors, and anyone can use it to hide a large fleet from undesired visitors,” Raw replied. Mitth’ali’taral’s library consisted mostly of books on space navigation and ships’ systems, space atlas with short descriptions of planets and their inhabitants and pilots’ emergency instructions. First he couldn’t get any sense in them, but after years on this ship he read them so many times that his child’s mind managed to combine all that difficult terms and formulas with the surrounding reality.

 

“This is the reason we are exploring them always very carefully. If I remember the maps right… now we are approaching one of the biggest in the crossing of unexplored sleeves of Kharu and Magera nebulas. And… I feel that we mustn’t go there. And Ori…” he shrinked into himself, hearing her scream in his mind again, tangled into vibrating threads coming from her side “she feels it too. There is something... _evil_ in there.”

 

Raw spread his senses again towards the thing that scared Ori so much. He saw dark big silhouettes in red clouds of the nebula. They looked not like some spaceships, but like huge monsters, obeying some evil will. He felt that will - powerful, intending to conquer, subdue and reshape everything that is undesired.

 

“And it’s very strong. Our patrol cruiser is not ready for this encounter. But it is our duty as defenders of the Ascendancy to find out what’s hiding there. That’s why the commander won’t change his mind, whatever we do.”

 

“Calm down. You’re screaming even louder, than her.” Nai sat closer to him, on the place which once Ori took, and hugged him. Cold light was coming from inside her palms, soothing the fear and anger that were boiling inside him. “Maybe it’s because you’re older and stronger you can feel so far. This is strange. Shouldn’t it be fading at your age?”

 

“I don’t know. Now it only seems to grow stronger. It seems to me sometimes that with enough concentration I can embrace the Universe.”  
  
“It sounds so enchanting.”

 

“It isn’t normal, Nai.” Raw clenched the fabric of his pants in his fists. He remembered how angry his mother was when he was three years old and his difference from the others became clear. She wasn’t generous with love and care before, but after that she almost abandoned him and let the fleet take him without any regrets. And his schoolmates, when they learned that a skywalker was among them, isolated themselves from him as if he was already dead.

  
He felt the vibration suddenly change, and after that the floor under their feet began to tremble. Waves of bright colored horror started to spread through the ship: now the danger that they encountered was real, and all the crew members could not comprehend it. Raw spread his senses again to see what was happening to the ship. The single direct hit of the unknown vessel drained the ship’s shields almost completely. They were turning back for retreat through the nebula. Engines were warming up for a micro-jump according to the route that the navigator led.

 

Ori wasn’t screaming anymore. Deep in trance, she saw only her path among the stars and almost subconsciously drew it on the holomap to make the ship follow her. The enemy didn’t give up the pursuit, and its weapons hit the cruiser every few seconds. That wasn’t the first time Raw recalled the Ik’cha to encounter the unknown enemy. But in almost all of these cases he was before the navigation console, and the enemy was much weaker.

Ori had never been inside a battle, and he could only imagine how hard it was now for her, when emotions the of every man on the ship were hitting her, attempting to put off her concentration.

 

“Do you feel it too?” Nai whispered, staring into blank space.  
  
“What?”   
  
“That we will die. Soon.”

 

Raw swallowed a lump in his throat and returned his attention to the room he was sitting in. He indeed had a bad feeling about it, but he tried not to think of it, tried not to be consumed by everyone’s panic. Navigators that were not involved in the current flight didn’t have to know what was happening to the ship, and thoughts of possible death caused only unneeded worries.  


“I’m scared,” murmured Is quietly and sorrowful. She climbed on his knees and dug her face into folds of his tunic.  


“Mitth’ali’taral is an experienced commander,” Raw said as calmly as he could, embracing the girl’s shoulders. “I trust him. We don’t have to talk of death. It won’t help our concentration.”

 

“And what happens when we die?” Nai asked as if she was sure. Is raised her head and looked at Raw, silently confirming her question. Raw breathed out nervously.

 

“How can I know that?” His voice trembled and sounded very childish right now. “I am alive, you know! And I don’t want to die at all!”

  
“You’ve read so many books,” Nai insisted, twitching his sleeve. “Isn’t it written in any of them?”

  
“Not really. Only in fairy tales maybe, but nobody knows anything for real. This is what death is. There is no coming back from there.”

  
The floor under their feet shook again, now much more noticable. The lighting in the room blinked few times and then faded completely. Now the only light in the room for kids was in their own eyes, shining brightly because of their intense heartbeats.

  
“I want a fairy tale,” Is’ voice was pleading. Raw was nervously recalling old legends, but the all were out of place. “Please!” she added, and he started thinking of something on his own.   


“Fine. There is a legend that every soul has it’s path written in the stars. But if…” he faltered, thinking of words. His cheeks were burning of shame that his lips were speaking this comforting lies. He swallowed a lump again and proceeded, only to cast away the silence, ringing with uncertainty. “If some evil will interrupts it earlier, than it should be, it proceeds… in the sky. Like a long fire band, lighting up the coldest nights.”

  
“We will become the polar lights. So beautiful,” Nai smiled, while her hands that proceeded to hug him started trembling.   


“It’s just a fantasy,” Raw coughed, holding himself up from more active protest.

  
“Fantasy is the best thing we have right now.”

  
The door opened again. Lieutenant came in limping and, without saying a word, he grabbed Is in his hands and ran out, stumbling on his way. The little girl didn’t have even a chance to yelp. Raw opened his mouth to object, but the words just froze in his lips.

  
Now there were only two of them.

  
The ship was incessantly shaking, and the raging alarm could be heard from the other side of the door. Crew members panicked one by one. Some were already dead in attempts to repair the ship’s damages sustained. The situation was critical and it didn’t get better, and the vibrations of threads that bind every atom of the ship together, were screaming as if ready to fall apart.

 

“If I stay alive and ever become the ship’s commander, I will never ever use the navigators,” Raw whispered, trying now to imagine an almost impossible future should he escape from here and now.

  
“Do adults do any other things? Or is it what we all doing when we grow up? Space flights and battles? If it is so… I really don’t want to grow up.”   
  
“No-no, it’s not like that. There are… many things. There should be. I’ve seen it on the pictures…” Raw scraped his nape nervously and rubbed his sweating hands on his pants. He wanted to be silent again, but he just couldn’t stop, like only the sound of his own voice could save him from the ring of uncertainty shrinking around them. “According to them, many of us live long and happily on solid ground. And space exploration is dangerous and difficult, and not everyone is suitable for it. Some kids even regret the are not born skywalkers, so they have to train a lot to see the stars close.

 

“Do you see any stars here?”

 

“Of course. But… not with my eyes. I guess the ones that dream of it imagine it the other way.”

 

“Tell me something. About this happy life. Like adults do. But no fantasy this time.”

 

“Well, they… are happy to serve their families. And the Ascendancy. And… the greatest thing for every Chiss is to give his life for the welfare of the state.”

  
“I don’t seem to feel happy about it,” Nai looked at the locked door, separating them from the rest of the ship, but unable to protect from their own existential horrors. “Isn’t there really anything except neverending servitude and death?”

  
“They also often talk of something called “love” in adult books, but I don’t seem to get what it means. On the pictures they’re just smiling and touching each other. Not the way we usually do.”   
  
“And which way?”

  
“It looks really weird. For example they… press their mouths to each other like they’re going to bite away each other’s lips. And then they undress each other and embrace each other… for a while. And sometimes it ends up in kids, and then they are encouraged by their family and the Ascendancy…”

 

“Raw!” Nai interrupted him with offended yelp and burst in tears. Her emotions, usually so soft and cool as fresh snow, now were burning with multiple sparkles as painfully bright as her eyes.

  
“Wha… what did I say wrong?”

 

“I don’t want to think about the Ascendancy!” she jumped off the bench and stood before him, clenching her little fists angrily. “Or about family! I hate them!”   
  
The same moment she finished the last word somewhere very near them the metal bulkheads scraped one into another with loud noise. Nai turned her head slightly to that sound, then looked at Raw again. She wiped her tears with her sleeve and jumped up onto his knees with resolve. She grabbed his face in her palms. He opened his mouth to object, but she was quicker, and managed to reach and press her lips into his in an awkward kiss.

 

It was so weird and wrong, but curiosity didn’t let him just push her away. There was nothing right about all their existence, and if it had to cease in next few minutes, it seemed natural. After few long moments like that, Nai moved away from him and silently stepped down on the floor. Then she came to the door, that opened at the same moment. This time there was another officer standing, and for a moment he freezed, seeing the navigator was expecting him.

 

“Goodbye, Raw,” she said quietly and stepped over the threshold. The door locked behind them, but the darkness was already not so overwhelming - there was only dim lights of emergency lamps, shining through smokes in the corridor, reminding Raw of shining mushroom on the cave walls he recalled from childhood.

 

Now alone, he rubbed his lips and laid on his bench. He put a lonely metal sphere in his palm and, while looking at it, he realized that there is no difference between it and the ship in the expanse of space. It seemed now so simple, that he started blaming himself that he didn’t realize it earlier, and now, when he was about to die here, thousands of lightyears from home, he has no one to tell about it. Then he thought that no one would listen to someone like him anyway. He couldn’t remember anyone to listen to him ever, except his elder brother, who didn’t have enough time for his chattering. Sometimes commander Mitth’ali’taral had some time for it, but he didn’t want to know anything of how the skywalkers see the world, and always intended to put Raw down to earth and show him how the real Chiss warrior should think, defeating his enemies without reaching for any unnatural senses.

 

An explosion erupted somewhere very close, and its wave shook all the ship so strong that it forced Raw to fall down from his perch. When he regained himself, more from the sound than from the fall, he looked around and saw that the door that separated the navigators quarters from the rest of the ship, bent and opened a little. He rose and tried to move it, but it rather forced the door to fall down from its mount.

  
It was unnaturally quiet down the corridors. The basic life support system was failing and cold came from the side of main engines. Raw went to the bridge, and spotted few dead crewmen on his way. He recognized the officer that took Nai, as one of them. His face was covered with fresh burns, evidently caused by an accumulating battery that exploded right above him. The emergency lamps were lighting the way up no more. The elevator was broken, and he had to climb to the bridge with emergency stairs.

 

Upstairs it was warmer and he could hear some living voices.

 

“...it’s critical, commander,” murmured some of the minor officers. The captain’s body with his neck crooked in unlucky fall was lying nearby. Beyond the front view window dense nebula was shimmering with shades of orange. “Our chance to survive is… approaching zero.”  
  
“Well, at least our enemy is caught in the same trap. They are dead, and we are still alive,” the commander was speaking flat, but his voice was hiding real despair.

 

“We are unable to communicate from here. It will take days to repair the engines, and the emergency life support system won’t last that long. Shouldn’t we launch the self-destruct sequence?”

  
“I will decide myself when…”

 

“What is going on?” Raw entered, and everyone turned to him and amused. Mitth’ali’taral’s face changed - mask of strict confidence suddenly melted, replaced with very out of place sparkle of sincere joy. Commander rushed to him.

 

“Raw! You’re alive!” He grabbed his shoulders. His face was so happy that he was unpleasant to look at, and Raw moved his eyes to the navigation console. It was empty. He moved his look further and noticed a white edge of a dress on the floor. “I’ve heard the explosion, Fimash didn’t return, I was thinking…”  
  
Raw didn't’ let him finish. He freed from his hug and rushed to the console.

 

Though he already knew what he was going to see, the emotions still overwhelmed him. He pressed his teeth not to let the painful scream come out when he was looking at the girls’ dead bodies, left lying in a pile on the floor. No one even managed to close their eyes, so all three were looking at him with creepy black eyes.

  
“Why didn’t you order to bring me in first place?” he hissed through his pressed teeth, feeling that Mitth’ali’taral was standing behind him.

 

“I couldn’t know it’d go like this.”

  
“The protocol of entering the rhi’takhor zone considers that you’re ready for possible battle encounters. Of all the navigators you had on this ship I have the best battle experience. I am the most stable to the unpredictable vibration changes. That was the most logical choice!”

  
“Know your place, son. I am your commander, and I decide…”

  
“...that you don’t want to put me in danger because you want to adopt me one day?” Raw turned to him, and commander took few steps backwards under his glance. “What is it in your rank, if you allowed your emotions to turn yourself into an incompetent fool? How many lost their lives today because of you?”

 

“You can not know how would it turn if you were not here. The enemy was very strong!”  


“How long did Is last? Two? Three minutes?” He came down to yelling, and now this yell had nothing in common with child’s hysteria. He was attacking his commander, while the latter proceeded to retreat until he pressed his back into the chair before the console. “How could it even come to your mind?” Raw took a swing and slapped his face. The few officers that were still on the bridge, reached for their weapons, but Mitth’ali’taral rose his hand in protesting gesture.

 

“There is no need to shoot,” he said, breathing deeply and heavily. “He is right. I’ve made a mistake.”

 

“And I am going to correct it,” after these words Raw pushed him aside and climbed into the chair.

 

“The engines are dead! Even if you’d be the best navigator in the whole history of Chiss Ascendancy you can’t change anything here!

  
“There is no difference between the ship and the metal ball. Between the thousand of kilometers and ten centimeters - there is no. It had always been so simple,” he put his hands on the powerless glossy surface of the console and concentrated. “You only have to embrace the cosmos.”

 

He listened to the music of infinite streams of energy, tangling around the ship, and widened his perception further and further. It demanded a lot of energy, and he broke one by one all his distracting bonds with physical reality, to cover more and more.   
  
Raw saw the trajectory. He was holding the shining threads in his hands. Space cruiser Ik’cha was not unlike a toy sphere, and it was moving forwards, obeying his will, passing by gravity wells and dangerous assemblies of star matter. Nothing intervened his comprehension except his heartbeat that became louder and louder each second. One moment it started to pull him back, and he turned it off irritatedly in attempt to regain concentration.

 

He felt that he wasn’t alone there. Nai, Is and Ori were walking beside him, holding his hands, supporting him on his path, woven from shining threads.

 

“Look, it’s almost like you’ve said,” sounded Ori’s voice. “Our path proceeds in the sky.”

 

“But you weren’t there when I was inventing this nonsense.”

 

“We’re always there. And we can always hear each other. Don’t distract yourself. We’ve almost saved the ship.”

 

Light ripples went through vibration of surrounding space. They’ve passed by the static zone, and Ikh’cha started sending the distress signal to nearby bases. The help should arrive soon. Raw allowed himself to loosen the concentration and only now he realized he wasn’t feeling his body. He forced himself to where he began - to the chair before the inactive console - and saw himself lying on the floor. Mitth’ali’taral bend over him and was desperately trying to launch his heart, although light in his eyes already faded, that meant almost for sure, that he won’t come back.

 

“Sir, he’s been dead for two minutes now,” the officer behind him was trying to pull the commander away by his shoulder, but he rushed back and kept calling for him.

 

“No,” Raw looked at his hands that were now energy streams, that he subconsciously assembled in shape of his body. “I don’t want to die!”

 

“But didn’t you say, that there is no better destiny for a Chiss than to give his life for the welfare of Ascendancy?” Nai asked carefully.

 

“This is happiness that can only be gained if you’ve lived for it. And I want to live for it!”   
  
He concentrated again and turned himself into an energy wave, that flew into his body, forcing the numb organism to move back to life.

 

***

  
A painfully insatiable inhale disrupted the silence of the bridge like a scream. Raw woke up and started coughing, wrinkling his face from a terrible headache and cold, embracing his limbs.   
  
“He’s alive! He’s alive!”

  
He recognized the commander’s voice. He opened his eyes and recognized his face, on which now emotions were changing in quick succession. He recognize even his smell, but something was yet missing in his image.

 

Mitth’ali’taral took Raw’s shoulders and rose him a bit, looking into his eyes attentively.

 

“Son, I don’t know, how you did it, but you’ve saved us all. They will come for us soon.”

 

“And… what did I do? I can barely remember… like I was pushing the ship through space?” Raw pressed his palms on his temples that were aching like someone was screwing bolts into them. The images of recent past were mixed up into blurry cloud, where could be seen three indistinct ghosts. And every new strike of pain made them fade away more and more, melting in the orange nebula off board.

 

“You must take some rest, you’ve almost died!”  
  
“Wait, there is something wrong here,” Raw pressed his teeth and looked around again. The cruiser’s bridge was damaged, but this still was it, with it’s every console, screen and chair.

 

A sudden guess came up to him. Leaning on the commander, he rose to his feet and took the metal sphere from his tunic pocket. He put it on his palm and looked long and attentively, trying to comprehend its every property with all his feelings. And while he looked his smile got wider.

 

“Raw?” Mitth’ali’taral asked in concern.

 

“It’s gone!”   
  
He laughed and let the sphere fall down from his hand to the floor. Metal hit metal loudly. It fell and rolled aside, obeying only the laws of physics, and stopped, when the impuls, created by artificial gravity, finally faded.   
  
“It’s… just a ball!” he looked at commander’s darkening face, not understanding, why isn’t anybody sharing his happiness. “Can it be true? I am finally normal!”

 

“What? No, it is too soon! You’re not even seven!”

  
“It never was about the age,” Raw approached the window and pressed his forehead into it, feeling, how cold surface makes his migraine more bearable. The dangerous nebula was now far enough, and dozens of parsecs of peaceful void were ahead.

 

“We will always be there, Raw,” he heard a weak echo somewhere from beyond physical comprehension and couldn’t even tell for sure, whose voice it was. “We will always be waiting,” it added and disappeared, and in the darkness of space sparkled for a moment three impossible bands of polar lights.

  
  


 


End file.
